17. Then, as a proof that He resents the name “good master,” on the ground of the unbelief, which addresses Him as a man, He replies to the vain-glorious youth, and his boast that he had fulfilled the law, One thing thou lackest; go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me. There is no shrinking from the title of “good” in the promise of heavenly treasures, no reluctance to be regarded as “master” in the offer to lead the way to perfect blessedness. But there is reproof of the unbelief which draws an earthly opinion of Him from the teaching, that goodness belongs to God alone. To signify that He is both good and God, He exercises the functions of goodness, opening the heavenly treasures, and offering Himself as guide to them. All the homage offered to Him as man He repudiates, but he does not disown that which He paid to God; for at the moment when He confesses that the one God is good, His words and actions are those of the power and the goodness and the nature of the one God.

17. Et bonum et magistrum sese ostendit.---Denique ostendens se magistri in se boni, per fidem ejus qui tamquam hominem interrogabat, nomen arguere, post jactantiam juvenis et gloriam legis impletae, ita respondit: 0294C Unum tibi deest: vade, quaecumque habes vende, et da pauperibus, et habebis thesaurum in coelo; et veni, sequere me (Marc. X, 21). Non refugit bonitatis de se nomen, qui coelestem thesaurum pollicetur: nec magistrum se non vult videri, qui ducem se perfectae hujus beatitudinis praestat. Terrenae autem de se opinionis fidem arguit, bonitatem in solo Deo docens esse. Et ut se et Deum et bonum significaret, bonitatis est usus officiis, coelestes thesauros pandens, et se ad eos praevium tribuens. Ita et quae sibi tamquam homini tantum deferebantur, detestatur; neque se ab his, quae Deo deputabat, professus alienum est: cum unum Deum bonum confitens, ea ipse loqueretur atque ageret, quae unius Dei virtutis, bonitatis atque naturae sunt.